While AMD’s official Radeon HD 7990 (New Zealand) continues to be missing in action, we’ve known for some time now that PowerColor has been working on their own custom dual-GPU Tahiti card. This week that card has finally received an official announcement and a name: the PowerColor Devil13 HD7990.

At its most fundamental level, the Devil13 HD7990 is a single-card 7970CF solution, following in the grand tradition of exotic dual-GPU cards. These cards represent a step beyond AMD and NVIDIA’s official dual-GPU cards, which shy away from single-GPU flagship performance due to power, size, and noise reasons. With exotic cards PowerColor and other partners can disregard those concerns completely, instead focusing solely on performance and bragging rights.

  Radeon HD 7970 Devil13 HD7990 Devil13 HD7990 - Factory OC
Stream Processors 2048 2 x 2048 2 x 2048
Texture Units 128 2 x 128 2 x 128
ROPs 32 2 x 32 2 x 32
Core Clock 925MHz 925MHz 1000MHz
Memory Clock 5.5GHz GDDR5 5.5GHz GDDR5 5.5GHz GDDR5
Memory Bus Width 384-bit 2 x 384-bit 2 x 384-bit
VRAM 3GB 2 x 3GB 2 x 3GB
TDP 250W A Lot Even More
Transistor Count 4.31B 2 x 4.31B 2 x 4.31B
Manufacturing Process TSMC 28nm TSMC 28nm TSMC 28nm

To that end, PowerColor has built a true behemoth in all respects. On the performance side of things the card is indeed a pair of 7970s on a single card, with two Tahiti GPUs mounted on a single PCB and clocked identically to the 7970 (925MHz), each with 3GB of GDDR clocked at 5.5GHz. As is typical for these exotic cards, the Devil13 also offers a further factory overclocked configuration that when activated pushes the GPUs to 1GHz each, some 75Mhz (8%) over the 7970. This in turn would push the performance of the card closer to that of the 7970GE in CrossFire, which has a similar 1GHz base clock.

Of course that much performance requires quite a bit of power. PowerColor doesn’t specify a TDP, but the card is equipped with 3 8pin PCIe power sockets, which would allow it to stay within spec while pulling up to a massive 525W. That kind of heat dissipation requires an equally overpowered cooler, which PowerColor provides in the form of a very large triple-slot triple-fan cooler, hooked up to a hereto unknown heatpipe/heatsink assembly. We’ve seen similarly large coolers pull off some amazing feats before so there’s little question it’s up to the task, making it more a matter of just how quietly such a cooler can operate under the circumstances.

But like all exotic cards, that kind of performance won’t come for cheap. PowerColor has not announced a price on the Devil13 HD7990, however in previous years we’ve seen similar cards go for $1200 or more. It goes without saying that once the Devil13 HD7990 does start shipping, it’s unquestionably going to be ultra-expensive and ultra-rare.

Source: PowerColor

Comments Locked

15 Comments

View All Comments

  • heffeque - Monday, August 27, 2012 - link

    Hope some nice drivers come with this, otherwise it's a waste of money.
  • Rookierookie - Monday, August 27, 2012 - link

    I would presume that the drivers treat it exactly as two 7970s in CF.
  • DanNeely - Monday, August 27, 2012 - link

    While adding a 3rd power connector will let it draw upto 525W without exceeding the spec on any of its individual power connections; I thought the PCIe spec itself imposed a 375W (75 + 2*150) cap on individual cards. In the past this's always been cited as the reason why dual GPU cards were clocked lower than their singleton peers.
  • Meaker10 - Monday, August 27, 2012 - link

    I think there is a general consensus that OEMs will not use cards over 375W, but I don't think it's a hard spec IIRC.

    That is certainly not the target market for this card.
  • CeriseCogburn - Monday, August 27, 2012 - link

    The 4870x2 super power hog blew the spec line a long long time ago, though no one complained about that - since it was all goooooood honest for the little people amd doing it man.
  • CeriseCogburn - Monday, August 27, 2012 - link

    Since AMD is doing it, it's okay to not be in spec at all, like they did with their PCI-E 3.0 cards, launching them out before they were certified for the spec, unlike nVidia.
    That caused some problems for the 79xx cards but since a lid was kept on the not certified for PCI-E 3.0 none of the fanboys knew why they were having problems.
    So, bottom line is, for the fan boys card, they can do whatever they want it's great using lots of powa ! Awesome !~
  • jkostans - Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - link

    You have posted a total of 3 (unreadable) comments so far and have contributed nothing significant. Congrats
  • CeriseCogburn - Thursday, August 30, 2012 - link

    Thanks for copying my original complaint, with your idiot caveat - "nothing - SIGNIFICANT" - looks like you just could not lie - as you had no idea amd failed to have their cards pci-e 3.0 certified when they launched them out...
    ROFL
    Yes, I DO contribute to educate you clueless and uninformed amd fans.
  • Patflute - Monday, August 27, 2012 - link

    So sexy...
  • N4g4rok - Monday, August 27, 2012 - link

    Well done on the TDP section. Actually laughed out loud for that.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now